Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Learning to Live with ME/CFS Now on Twitter!

Yes, I have finally joined Twitter...kicking and screaming and dragging my feet! I swore I would never do this - just because I am already doing more things than I have time or energy for - but I was kind of forced into it, so I will give it a try.

A good friend told me about a very cool Writer Residency program that Amtrak is sponsoring - they will pick 24 writers to win a free trip on Amtrak (from 2 to 6 days) in a sleeper car. The idea is to promote the arts while also promoting Amtrak. It sounds great to me - I can always use some uninterrupted writing time, and this opportunity comes with a bed for resting! So, I filled out the form, wrote my answers to the short essay questions, uploaded a writing sample...and then found that the site wouldn't accept my application until I entered a Twitter handle. Really? Yup, Twitter was a requirement. I suppose they just want to get the maximum PR from the free trips they are giving away, and apparently, blogs are just so 2013.

So, I bit the bullet and signed up for Twitter - finally. The Twitter handle for this blog is @livewithmecfs, so go look me up! So far, I have zero followers. I got further annoyed with Twitter when it required me to pick at least 15 Twitter feeds to follow before it would sign me up. Sheesh. I don't like being forced to do things! ha ha

I'm sure I will end up enjoying Twitter. I just need to be careful not to let it get too time-consuming. I had just started making some progress in the past week in taming my e-mail and Facebook obligations and trying to limit my time spent on those. Back to square one.

What have been your experiences with Twitter? Any advice on keeping it from taking up too much time? I don't have a smart phone and mainly just use my cell phone to keep in touch with my husband and kids. I really don't like the idea of being constantly "on call," so I will probably check Twitter online for now. Any suggestions for this newbie are welcome!

8 comments:

Hi Suewelcome to the twittersphere! I control my time on it by just looking at it first thing in the morning and then last thing at night and not getting hung up on making sure I see every tweet on my feed in between (unlike my daughter who has to go back and look at every post in her feed since the last time she looked). I also check in with it if i'm say stood in a queue with my phone in my bag - it's good for filling time like that - or waiting to pick one of the kids up from somewhere. The other thing I do to cut it down a bit is to only read the tweets in my feed that I'm in the mood for, so I might just read all the ME related stuff one time and then another time pick out the comedy feeds, depending on my mood. Good luck. I'll pop over there and find you.

Thanks for the tips, Beauts! That is similar to what i just started doing with my e-mail and FB groups - limiting when I check and closing the windows otherwise. Also, since morning is my only real productive time of day, I am TRYING (not always successfully!) to put off checking e-mail and FB until afternoon and get right into writing or other projects after breakfast - it;s hard to ignore e-mail though! I will try to get into the same habits with Twitter - so far, it's been a fascinating distraction - lol!

Glad to see you're on Twitter. It can be great if you use lists to keep things organized, otherwise I find it totally overwhelming. For example, I follow news sources, friends, blogs and celebrities, and organize them all into categorized lists. Then I use HootSuite instead of the Twitter website, which keeps your lists in columns. Once you find a system that works for you, you'll really love Twitter. It's my favourite way to keep up with all the breaking news!

I limit my twitter time by just checking my notifications box once a day, which lets me know if anyone has mentioned, retweeted, favourite or replied to any of my tweets. I also make sure I favourite any tweets from people that have made an effort to connect with me so that I am more likely to see their future tweets.That way I get to connect without getting totally overwhelmed. Good luck! I'm already following you.

That would be great, Amy - an excellent way to promote your book. I started with a limited scope - just my CFS blog/audience (I also write 2 book blogs), and it's not been too time-consuming. I just check it once or twice a day and close the window the rest of the time so I'm not constantly checking it!

I have had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS or CFIDS) since March 2002. My 19-year old and 16-year old sons also have CFS, and my older son also has Lyme disease plus two other tick infections. This blog is about how our family is learning to live with chronic illness, with a focus on living and enjoying our lives in spite of these challenges.